Wall-E

Primary Creator
Director Andrew Stanton
Contributor(s)
Animation Pixar Studios
Screenwriter Andrew Stanton
Properties
Duration98 minutes
Era1991-2010
StyleSci-Fi
Name of WorkWall-E
Production Date2008
Production Location


Current Location


General Notes

Incredible realistic animation from Pixar. Complex visuals, though, sometimes too much fast cutting so one can't really see what is going on.

Description

Earth is covered in garbage. Nothing is alive anymore. All humans are gone. The cities are destroyed and covered in garbage. Only one little robot (Wall-E) is still doing things on earth (compacting garbage). But this robot has values and a personality (in a very limited way). Eventually an extraterrestrial "probe" (that is, a "female" probe) arrives, and Wall-E seems smitten. Turns out female is there to find plant life. She finds one, and goes back to origin -- which is a giant ship with filled with incapacitated, obese former humans. This discovery (of the single plant) results in fight to return to earth to repopulate it.

Theme

Mankind is a blight on the universe, and only cute robots (as opposed to evil robots) can save the earth from human degradation.

Emotional Sum or Sense-of-life

The world is garbage, and more garbage and humans have destroyed the earth, because of their wanton consumerism.

Tags

dystopia, environmentalism

Discussion: Wall-E

While some people view this movie in a rosy light -- as a cute love story, I find the actual facts presented in the movie to add up to a massive negative message:

-Portrays earth as devastated by “consumerism” and is barren of life. -The ugliness of a world covered in garbage, and completely ruined (worse than the Dark Ages). I found this whole aspect of the visual destruction of the world the most disturbing. -The only living thing remaining is a roach. -The protagonist doesn’t seem that much of an actual “character”. Portrays Wall-E as a mindless brute (or at least a mostly un-free-will machine) that just spends 700 yrs doing useless stuff, and would continue along for another 700 yrs. -The supposed love interest (Eve) tries to kill him repeatedly due to her programming. -No reasons given why Wall-E loves this killing machine. -Humans are a disgusting set of helpless creatures (that are on a distant spaceship on autopilot). -Somehow, unexplained, humans created a complete universe of self-perpetuating robots that can take care of the helpless, hopeless humans. But the humans couldn’t “fix” their planet’s supposed problems. -Somehow the Wal-mart clone (the evil corporation) managed to create giant space cruisers that can go on forever, literally, serving the human blobs in perfect comfort and mindlessness. -Somehow babies are born on ship, even though the human blobs cannot physically interact or procreate. -The captain, a supposed hero blob, is pathetic as a hero, even though, in his context, what he does is above the call of normality or duty. It is the most anemic view of heroism ever portrayed in fiction.

Seeing the movie

This entry in Artgrok uses the trailer to give a flavor of the movie, but FYI, the trailer really doesn't give full exposure to the main theme of the movie. The environmentalism that is central to the theme, and the view that mankind is a blight on the universe comes out well enough in the movie, but in the trailer, only a quick mention is made of the setup -- that Wall-E is on earth in order to try to clean up a devastated uninhabited place due to humans wanton ways. Perhaps a better thing to do would be to find a clip that shows this theme more clearly.